In the next generation of telecommunication networks, multimedia conferencing is considered to be one of the most promising network services provided. A type of multimedia conferencing is the Instant Conference. An Instant Conference is a voice conference call or video conference in which an organizer selects a list of participants and/or conference groups from an address book or contact list, and establishes a conference with the selected invitees and/or group members with a single input. For example, Instant Conference techniques that facilitate the initiation and maintenance of video conferences or voice conference calls are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/336,528. The disclosed techniques enable an organizer to establish (virtually instantly) a video conference or voice conference call with a list of participants by pressing a button, speaking a suitable command, or using another simple input technique. Thus, an Instant Conference significantly reduces conferencing set-up complexity and time.
Notwithstanding the numerous advantages of the above-described Instant Conference techniques, a significant problem still exists with respect to the initiation of Instant Conferences. Upon receiving an invitation to an Instant Conference (e.g., phone call), without responding to the invitation, the invitees are unable to determine (1) that they are being invited to a conference, (2) the identity of the organizer, or (3) the purpose of the conference. For example, existing Instant Conference initiation techniques require the invitees to respond to an invitation (e.g., answer the telephone), and then talk with the organizer to determine the purpose of the conference. In other words, invitees are currently unable to preview an invitation to an Instant Conference (or other multimedia conference), so that they can decide upfront whether or not to accept, reject or disregard the invitation.